


You used to show me the way home (now there's no one to follow)

by likecrackingwater (1thetenfootlongscarf2)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Loss, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 18:57:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5302997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1thetenfootlongscarf2/pseuds/likecrackingwater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a sacrifice without prayer is thought to be useless and not a proper consultation of the gods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You used to show me the way home (now there's no one to follow)

**Author's Note:**

> Faith.

Mount Weather was nothing to her, a minor inconvenience to her rise to power. Then she was grabbed and dragged into the darkness.

Her mother had been faithful. Abby kept some parts of it - the nightly prayers, the hidden comfort in never being alone, but it was just habit.

Once she came home from classes and raged in her mother's face. "We live in space! How can you believe in Heaven if you can see it's not there?"

Below them Asia passed by. She could not see the Great Wall but she imagined it in her mind's eye. Built to keep the Mongolian army out, and they just went around.

"Abby." Her mother didn't look up from her Bible. Books were not rare here, on the Ark, but personal ones were. Ones with family history and belief pressed like a flower between the pages. Her mother loved flowers. Sometimes she would bribe the Agro workers to give her dead ones. She would carefully cut away the leaves and use old thin cloths to press the flowers dry. Every Christmas her mother would give Abby a collection, blues and yellows and white. "To a new year," she always said.

"Abigail, belief is not ignoring what is in front of us, it's hoping for _more_ than what is before our eyes."

"You're so stupid! There's nothing there. You can see there's nothing there. It's bullshit!"

She flew from the room. Hours later she returned, just before curfew. They never spoke of it.

As time passed the sting of anger faded but the guilt never did. Years later, when she had a job and a husband and a daughter and on the horizon the threat of more than that, of responsibility over the lives of everyone who was or would ever be, she went to her mother and asked to talk.

Rather, she snuck out at night. The halls were dimmed to darkness. The night had never seemed blacker, the law of space more profound. She was in a tin can. If there was the smallest of holes anywhere they would all die. Life would rush out and nothingness would fill the space left behind. 

Her mother opened the door by the third knock.

"Abbs? What brings you here?" But she was already being pulled inside. Being out past curfew was fifteen lashes. The things one does for love. For comfort. 

"Mom. I'm... I wanted to say that I'm sorry. When I yelled at you."

"Oh?" She didn't remember. Her mother had been forgetting a lot recently. She knew what it was (they knew, the other doctors, the nurses) but everyone just ignored it. For now. Her mother led her to the kitchen. The seats were hard wood and made her back ache.

"I asked how could you believe in Heaven if you can see the Earth from here. I... I want to know."

They were drinking water. It was so cold her teeth ached. 

Her mother rose. "One moment, hon."

When she returned she held the Bible like an offering. "Take it. But don't read it yet. Just hold it."

Abby took it. The cover was leather. It was supple under her fingers. She could smell the musty meat sent, that noiseless reminder of lost things. Dead things.

"Do you know of Job?"

"Yes." She didn't.

"I love Job. Job is the the story of the test of faith. It is easy to have faith and easy to loose it. It is hard to keep it, Abbs. Job lost everything. He suffered beyond what we will ever know. That's a blessing in itself. And space is not is in spite of heaven, or without it. Job 26:7 'He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing'. If God made the heavens and the Earth, all that is visible and invisible, why can we not have heaven with space? Faith is not ignoring what we have. It's hearing the sound of the spheres and calling into the void, 'here I am'."

She could feel the softness of the leather. Her hands would smell like it for days. "Okay." Was all she said.

"Do you have faith?"

"I want to believe in something."

Her mother nodded. "Take the Book. Read it cover to cover. When you finish we'll talk about it okay? We'll talk about whatever you want. I've missed you, hon. It gets lonely out here."

Instead of talking, her mother got more forgetful. Jaha had to step in at the end.

"It has to be today."

Her mother had been found near the turbines by section six. She had been searching for Danny Boyle. He never existed according to Ark records. They were foolproof. Or had been, until Octavia Blake. Hidden like a feral child and named by a mad boy and kept by an absent mother. When they pulled the girl, hissing and spitting, out of her cage, Abby thought  _there is no God._  

It was not unusual to lack faith in space. They lived in the future, after all. Despite that, or because of it, she packed the Book for the final trip down.

Then the Mountain happened. She was strapped on the table and her blood roared in her ears and her mind cried  _forgive me Father, for I have sinned._

After she was freed she was carried back to camp on a stretcher. Clarke walked beside her for awhile. She held her daughter's hand and looked at the sky and though she knew what hope looked liked.

Clarke left. Abigail clung to the idea of the Prodigal Son, the sinner brought low but brought home. But it never happened. It was easier to throw herself into work. She forgot to eat or sleep sometimes. Helping others consumed her and being helpless drained her sleep. After a few months her pants didn't fit. She had to puch a new hole in her belt.

A few days later Bellamy brough her a bowl to the bay. She knew he was avoiding her as much as she dismissed him. If they got too close they became painfully aware of each other.

The soup was thin and brown but the bread looked like something out of a movie, perfectly risen. _This is my body which is given for you: do this in remembrance of me.... So that you sins may be forgiven._

"Thank you," her voice sounded weak.

"I know I don't have the right," he started awkwardly, "but I think that you need a break. The woods are safe now. You could... Take a walk."

She looked up at the change in his voice. He had seen a book, the Book, and his gaze held more than intrest. It sat near her hand. She wasn't sure in anything, still, but the actions were comforting.

"I'll think about it." She said.

Most of the next day she roamed. At noon she stopped for lunch looking over the valley. From a distance the fence was almost invisible. 

When she was hungry she ate and when she was thirsty she drank and when she was tried she lay in the warmth of the late afternoon. The sun was setting by the time she returned.

Some of the people by the gate smiled when she got back. The happiness she carefully cultaved popped like a soap bubble. Would they look at Clarke like that when she returned? Could they forgive her as easily as Abby already had? She doubted it. 

Three days later the dull haze hadn't lifted. When she entered the med bay she noticed someone had moved her tablet. It was out on the surgery table. In its place, where it couldn't be missed, was a rosary. The carving was not intricate, but it was made with care. Abigail slipped it into her pocket. That afternoon she visited Raven in her workshop. She listened as the girl spoke and ate most of a turkey sandwich. One of the younger children brought it, one who was under the Mountain too. She ate despite that and kept one hand in her pocket, touching the beads on the knotted string.  _Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death._

She didn't see Bellamy for another month. She started to put on weight again. Her belts were at the machine punched holes.

"You need a haircut." It was supposed to sound like a suggestion but barked like an order. He nodded once and vanshed around the corner of the Ark. The nights got darker eariler. 

At six the sun was at the top of the trees and Abigail stood outside of the boy's tent with a pair of sissors she borrowed from the bay. No one would notice until tomorrow. She knocked on the upright of the tent. Octavia stuck her head out. Her face flickered with surprise.

"I'm here to see your brother. He needs a haircut." She held up the scissors as a sign of proof.The girl's eyes narrowed slightly. 

"He's ten minutes walk west of the gate," the information was offered off-hand, almost flippant. Abigail knew that nothing was ever given pro bono. 

Instead she said "thanks" and set off. It was harder going west than she expected. This area wasn't as traveled. It was behind the Ark and not on the way to the creek or the path. After a while she heard a voice. The words were carefully enunciated. She recognised some words immediately - it was Latin. Her experience only extended to an old Christmas song. This was something else. 

She might not know the words or cadence, but she knew when people addressed a superior. 

She felt faint surprise at seeing Bellamy, but there was something distant about it. He was talking to a tree. That was more surprising than finding him here in the woods. Somehow the tree had grown up around a boulder, which was now suspended two feet from the ground. It was quite impressive. To his left was a dead squirrel and his right a thin, short knife and a brown cloth roll. Directly in front was a fire pit ringed with white stones. Flames flickered between a small pyre. It reminded Abby of Finn, of the days spent pulling the Mountain Men from their self made tomb.

When he stopped speaking she called to him. He turned so fast she winced in sympathy. 

"What are you doing here?" He asked.

"I came to give you haircut." Again she raised the scissors. "You?"

He shrugged. " _Do ut des._ "

"What's that?" She moved foward, despite knowing it was private. Maybe she moved foward because it was.

"It's a," he cast about for an answer, "promise, between men and gods. It means 'I give that you might give'."

The mention of gods piqued her interest. Even pre-bomb she knew polytheism was dying. "Does it work?" 

The look he shot her was a bit disgusted. "Does your rosary?"

The silence was strained. Abigail finally nodded. "I think so."

Bellamy sighed. "Alright." He glanced at the squirrel. He look distracted, and Abigail felt guilty.

"You can keep going," she offered. "Or... I can help."

"It's fine. You can watch." He didn't seem self-concious but his hands trembled. "I'll explain as I go."

He gutted the squirrel with expert movements. He put the body down on a cedar board and set aside some organs on a copper plate. He pointed at the latter. "That's the  _exta_ of the  _sacrificium_. This is our portion," at the cuts on the board, spatchcocked and unseasoned.

He unrolled the brown cloth. Inside there was a small bag and a metal skewer. She watched as Bellamy carefully threaded on the gall baldder, liver, heart, and lungs. He named them as he did so, "fel, iecur, cor, pulmones", then set the skewer and board on the fire.

"You can sit down," he offered. Abby folded herself on to the grass.

"Thank you for the rosary."

He watched the flames. "You're welcome."

She plucked a grass stem and tied it into a knot. There were a lot of questions she wanted to ask, but most were too prying.

"When did you start to practice?"

He shrugged. Fine, she would.

"I started after Claire was born. Three days after they floated my mother."

Bellamy looked at her. She kept talking.

"I was almost invisible then. People... It was outside of my control. My mom lost her mind and would be a drain on resources. She was floated after she was found... Wandering. I needed something to do, so I read the book cover to cover. It help me, gave my mind something to do."

Bellamy was looking back into the flames. He seemed pensive. "I made a  _sacer_ out of an apple peel my mom dropped." His expression grimaced, lips curled over teeth. "I wanted her to be happy. We had just finished a unit on Classical histories and my teacher encouraged me to read some books from the religious section. Pliny the Elder, Julius Caesar." Abby felt the shock and confusion clear on her face. He must have been six or five at the time. Bellamy chucked softly. "I was never allowed in the library. She checked them out for me." He streched his arms over his head. His back popped. "I though I was so clever, the  _sacer_ wasn't too big, wasn't made with intent, but..." he trailed off. "A _votum_ is a  _votum._ I gave an apple peel and my mother got pregnant - was given a child. _Do ut des._ "

Abby understood. There was no way to explain when experimentation became ritual, the slippery moment when the pratice was superseded by the intent. 

"Have you done this before?" The meat was cooking. She could see the steam rising off the board.

"I come here once a week," he tipped his head back to look up, "and I have some other things I do every day."

"I use the rosary every day." Abby pulled it out then. "How did you know?"

His grin was small and depreciating. "I may not believe in it, but you do.  _Do ut des_ isn't just for the gods."

"The Council," she realized. "You're not on it though."

He poked some meat with stick. It hissed loudly. "You got Octavia, Jasper, and Miller. Three more than I expected."

"I expected you to want a seat." Abby confessed. Maybe her expectations of him were more what she wanted for him.

"I did. I still do. But I know it wouldn't be good for me and I wouldn't be good for it."

It was a sudden reminder that he was almost twenty five. He wasn't a child, and he didn't think like one.

"What about this?" She gestured to the plate. "Would this get you a seat?"

Bellamy shook his head. "I never asked for it."

"What do you ask for?"

He raised an eyebrow. "What do you ask for?"

Abby knotted another strand of grass. "Protection. Safety. Hope. Peace, if I'm feeling lucky."

He nodded as she spoke. "Same here."

After one last check on the meat he pulled it off the fire. He slid the _exta_ back onto the copper plate. From the pouch he sprinkled on some white powder. 

" _Mola salsa_ , flour with salt." Then he pulled a bottle from his pocket and poured out some red liquid over the meat. "And some wine. I traded with some grounders for it."

He looked at the plate for a moment, the organs dusted in powder and swimming in wine. Then he dumped it into the fire.

Abby scrambled to her feet. The smell was incredible, flesh and alcohol. The flour and wine cause the fire to roar.

Bellamy pushed the board of squirrel towards her. "We need to eat."

She carefully pulled the meat off the bones. It was quite hot. "Is this the biggest thing you've offered?"

"No." A bone snapped between his teeth. "Before I went into the mountian Lincoln helped me with a deer." She could see by his expression that he thought that deer had some impact under the mountian, that he was given something in return.

"What is this called?" Her eyes fixed on the fire again. She couldn't imagine the inferno with an animal that size. 

 _"Porricere._ To make an offering."

"Will they take it?"

Bellamy looked up. He was working on a back leg.

"Does your God answer?"

Abby thought for a second. She lost Clarke, her home, her safety. Everything she asked for, day in and day out, was just out of rreach. But here was a young man, alive and well. They had fourty four children pulled from the bowles of hell. They would survive the winter.

"Yes. Not in ways I expect..." She put down a bone, tried to gather her thoughts. "I think it's easier down here to believe." Abby looked up. The sky was streaked with blues and purples, the horzon shot though withh red and yellow. The stars were coming out. "With this sky I can hope for a heaven."

Bellamy followed her gaze. "I know what you mean."

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this at one in the morning on my phone. I'm not thrilled with the title. Suggestions welcome.  
> Summay from Pliny the Elder.


End file.
